


If I Sang Out of Tune

by martial_quill



Series: a mirror of worlds [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/M, First Date, Matt Murdock Is a Flirt, Trish Walker is Better Than You, crack ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13437945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martial_quill/pseuds/martial_quill
Summary: Missing scene from "right where we are." Matt and Trish's first date.I'm not at all sorry about the title.





	If I Sang Out of Tune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livingvakariouslythroughyou (supercow585)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercow585/gifts).



She puts the car into park, and leans her head against the steering wheel.

 _There’s no need to be nervous,_ logic tells her. It sounds like her therapist. _You’re Trish Walker._

 _He’s Daredevil. He’s Matt Murdock. He was a hero from age nine onwards_.

Her phone buzzes.

 **Jessica, 6:50pm:** _Get out of the goddamn car. You’ll be fine, I promise._

She lets out a long breath, and texts back.

 **Trish, 6:50pm:** _How did you know? Were you following me?_

 **Jessica, 6:50pm:** _I’m not that creepy, Walker. I know you well enough to know that if everything was on schedule, you’d be psyching yourself out right about now._

 **Jessica, 6:50pm:** _If it helps, I think he’s really excited and probably a bit nervous about meeting you too. Now get in there, and be yourself, and I promise, you’ll goddamn blow him away._

Trish gets out of the car, and smooths down the dress.

It’s nice. Blue, knee-length, flaring over her hips, the skirt loose enough to move in. The heels are wide-based, a slightly deeper blue colour than the dress, and she knows she can run in this pair. Her gun is in her purse, she’s got a knife in a holster at her thigh. She checks her makeup in her compact: her lipstick is a dark blood-red, her highlight is shimmering, her lashes are long with coats of mascara.

She looks goddamn _fabulous_.

Now she just needs this to go well, she thinks, as she begins to walk to the restaurant.

It’s a warm spring night; warm, but not humid, which, thank God, her hair goes terrible in humidity. She takes out the chain of text messages and checks them as she walks, smiling. She can picture Jessica’s face as she texted, exasperated, can hear the tone of her voice, infuriatingly flat and calm, the way it’s been since they were kids, and she was the one pulling Trish out of pill-popping spirals and showing her _family_.

She sighs.

_I love you._

She’s wished every day since that night that she’d been able to say it back at the time.

She shakes her head, and focusses on the street numbers. She should be close...Ah, there it is. _Spice Room_. It’s right beside a laundromat café. It’s not exactly a huge place, but then it’s not small, either, and the smells are mouth-watering.

The hostess smiles at her.

She smiles back. “Hi, I’m meeting Mr Murdock here?” she says.

“Of course, right this way,” she says, leading them over.

Table near the corner of the room. Lots of booths along the south side of the room, dampening a lot of the noise. He’s preparing to block out a lot of sound, it’d seem.

“Mr Murdock? Your friend is here,” the hostess says, smiling, touching him quickly on the arm to announce their presence.

He smiles and stands, holding out one hand. “Thank you, Simran. Hi, Trish.”

She shakes his hand, squeezing gently. “Hi, Matt,” she says. “Come here often, I take it?”

Matt’s smile widens, and Jesus, Jess wasn’t kidding about him being handsome.

“Often enough, yes. Indian’s probably my favourite take-out. Thai clocks in at a close second, though.”

She huffs. “Not a big cookery guy, I take it?”

He shrugs. “I’m decent at it, but swinging the time to plan actual meals? It’s enough of a struggle to throw stuff in a pan for breakfast, some days.”

She nods. “Tell me about it.”

He huffs a laugh. “You?”

She hums. “Chinese, probably. Thai’s good too, though, and I _really_ like French food.”

He grins again, and her heart thuds a little faster in her chest.

He doesn’t try to order for her, not drinks or food, but when she asks him what’s best, without hesitation, he tells her that it’s their chicken biryani.

“Okay, just so I know,” he says, once the orders have been taken. “Exactly what has Jessica told you? Just so I know which parts to dismiss as blatant lies.”

Trish tilts her head to the side, and smirks. “You make a lot of blind jokes.”

He chuckles, the sound sending a shiver down her spine. “Well, that part I can’t deny,” he admits.

“The rest is stuff relating mostly to your night job,” she says. “She neglected to tell me about almost anything else, so I just know that you’re a lawyer.”

“One of the damned,” Matt agrees, his expression perfectly serious, and Trish _cracks_ , laughter rippling up her throat.

“Oh, my God. You use that joke on every girl?”

“Nah. Only the pretty ones,” he continues, perfectly deadpan, and she snorts.

“Okay, so you’re a lawyer and a dork. Where’d you study?”

“Columbia,” Matt shrugs, and she almost chokes on her drink.

“Wow, okay, I suddenly feel very underprepared by comparison.”

“The household name feels underprepared?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, you…You’re a listener?” she can feel her cheeks warming.

His smile is shy, this time, but also a little pleased with himself – he’s _clocked her blush_ , dammit – and he ducks his head. “You have a wonderful voice,” he says. “And I like the way you draw people out in the interviews. A lot of people are really aggressive, like as a host it’s their job to cross-examine them. You’re not. At least, not most of the time.”

She shrugs. “Sometimes, it’s called for,” she says, sipping at her drink. “But you’re right. A lot of the time, people just use talkback as a reason to beat up on people.”

Matt smirks, but then a sound must catch his attention, because he tilts his head to the side.

She waits, patiently, and after a moment, he shakes his head a little, as though to clear it.

“All good?”

He smiles. “I think so.”

It progresses nicely from there on. She learns quite a bit about him, from that point on. When asking about his childhood, he steers conversation to little moments. One of his friends teaching him how to French braid, and how he [ memorized all the words ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009822#main) to _Baby Got Back_ to get the other kids at the orphanage to stop calling him Saint Matthew.

“What about you?” he asks. “Where are you from?”

“Connecticut,” she says. “Jess and I moved to Manhattan when we were in our twenties. I needed to get away.”

Matt hums. “Sometimes, I wish I had.”

“Moved from Hell’s Kitchen?”

His nod is slow, thoughtful. “It’s made me who I am. But I wonder what it would have been like to be someone else.”

She swallows, hard, because, _oh,_ how she knows that feeling. It’s lingered in the back of her mind for every day, ever since she was old enough to step in front of a camera and smile. What it would be like, to be someone other than Patsy Walker, other than Trish Walker. Safely anonymous.

She reaches across the table, and squeezes his fingers.

He squeezes back, his grip warm, Braille-callused and strong.

 

They get gelato, and she manages to just beat him to paying for it.

He pouts for half a second, and the expression looks so childlike on him that she laughs, unrestrained and free, like a schoolgirl that she never was, but he giggles too, in response to her laughter, his hand slipping down her arm to twine their fingers together. Her hand tingles at his touch.

“Okay, but you can’t be serious,” he says, shaking his head, as she passes him his cone.

“I’m dead serious,” she insists. “We’re calling you the Defenders.”

He huffs. “You’d think that’d be what the Avengers initiative would be called, seeing as they do a lot more of the whole repelling-boarders thing,” he says.

“Maybe, but taken name is taken. I’m pretty sure somebody’s got that trademarked, if all the merchandise they made off it is something to consider.”

“Now that’s something my contract law professor would _love_ to consider,” he chuckles. “I should tell him. Make the next class sweat a bit.”

“You don’t think they sweat enough as it is?” she teases, taking another spoonful of her vanilla gelato. “I found college stressful enough at undergrad level.”

“What did you major in?”

“Psychology,” she says.

“Well, that’s not terrifying in the slightest,”  he jokes, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger.

She laughed. “Well, human mindsets have always interested me,” she shrugs. It’s a little early for the whole ‘my Mom was an abusive bitch and I had a fuckton of things to analyse’ thing, anyway.

“Okay, just promise me you won’t psychoanalyse me,” he says, mock-frowning at her. The light dances in his hair, and she chuckles, tearing her eyes away. He swallows.

 _Just how much about me can he sense?_ she wonders.

She steps a little closer, trailing her free hand over his chest for a moment.

“No promises,” she whispers in his ear, and then stepping back in one fluid movement.

The expression on his face is _priceless_ , and she savours it, as she swallows the last of her scoop.

He walks her as far as the parking deck, and outside the car, he stands, one hand tightening and relaxing around his cane.

“I had a really good time tonight,” he says, softly, _shyly_ , again, God, he’s nervous, and kind, and with a smile like sunshine–

Trish gives into hormones and dopamine and _fuck,_ he’s _really nice_ , and steps closer again, swiping her thumb over the stubble of his cheek before drawing him into a kiss.

His lips are soft, and still taste like chocolate from the ice cream; his cane clatters to the ground and his hand rests on the small of her back. It's mostly chaste, but firm enough that it promises good things to come. His stubble scrapes a bit against her chin, and when he draws back, he rests his forehead against hers, still smiling.

“We should do this again,” she says.

“I agree,” he says, the smile widening. “Call me?”

She huffs. “I will.”

He bends to pick up the cane, and straightens. “Good night, Trish.”

“Good night, Matt,” she says.

She leans against the car, watching him tap away down the street.


End file.
